Needle.



' O. D. BELL.

NEEDLE. APPLIGATION FILED OCT-15, 1912.

Patented Aug. 19, 1913.

WITNESSES ATTORNEYS I the needle in sewing;

OTIS D. BELL, OF NEW YORK, N. Y.

NEEDLE.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Application filed October 15, 1912.

Patented Aug. 19,1913. Serial No. 725,812.

To all whom it may concern: 7

Be it known that I, OTIS D. BELL, a citi- Zen of the United States, and a resident of the city of New York, borough of Brooklyn, in the county of Kings and State of New York, have invented a new and Improved Needle, of which the following is a full, clear, and exact description.

My invention relates more particularly to needles for use in the fastening of large buttons on heavy garments, and is designed more especially for drawing through the material of the garments and through the buttons, the heavy thread or cord with which such buttons are usually fastened, although it will be understood that the needle has a wider use. Thus, for instance, the device forms a means for use in the fastening of price tags and stock tags to garments, whether the tag string has free ends or is in the form of a closed loop, the latter being diflicult of fastening to a fabric with needles of ordinary form.

It is a design of my invention to provide a needle having an element thereon so re lated to the body of the needle as to form a clamp in which the thread or cord is jammed.

It is further a design of the invention to provide a clamping element in the form of a resilient arm that normally tends to spring outward for the ready entrance and removal of the thread, but which arm may be held in the closed position and in close relation to the body of the needle when the latter is grasped to be passed through the garment, or garment and button.

The invention will be more particularly explained in the specific description hereinafter to be given.

Reference is to be had to the accompanying drawings forming a part of this specification, in which similar characters of reference indicate corresponding parts in all the views.

Figure 1 is a side elevation of a needle constituting a simple, practical embodiment of my invention, the needle being shown with the resilient element in the open position; Fig. 2 is a similar view with the resilient element in the closed position as when grasped by the user in the manipulation of and Fig. 3 is a cross section on approximately the line 3-3 of Fig. 1.

In forming a needle in accordance with the illustrated example, the body 10 is given the desired length for efliciency and convenient manipulation, and said body is divided longitudinally for a portion of its length to produce an arm 11, which in practice is resilient. The divided portion terminates short of the front pointed end 12, and rearward of said end is a rearwardly facing lateral shoulder 18, adjacent to which the front end 11 of the resilient arm 11 terminates. The resilient arm 11 normally tends to spring away from the body 10,-

to leave an opening or throat 14t as clearly indicated in Fig. 1, between the terminal of the arm and the shoulder 13. The arrangement is such that when the arm 11 is in the inner position, it will be adjacent to the shoulder 13 and within the general longitudinal plane of the needle, to permit it to be readily passed through a garment, or garment and button.

The arm 11 merges at its rear end into the solid rear end 15 of the needle, and into the body thereof, thereby producing at the juncture of the arm and body, opposed surfaces converging to an acute angle, so that the rear end of the arm and the adjacent portion of the body constitute clamp members. Thus when the arm is permitted to spring open, the cord or thread 16 may be readily entered and drawn rearwardly until it jams between the opposed surfaces of the body and said arm; thus simply by grasping the arm and the adjacent body portion of the needle between the fingers 0f the user, as indicated in Fig. 2, the arm will be brought close against the body within the plane of the shouldered front end, permitting the needle to be passed through the material or materials to be sewed, the arm in the inner position presenting no 0bstruction to the advance of the needle.

The needle in practice is made diamondshape, or given equivalent polygonal cross section to provide more or less sharp edges 10 the formation being designed to reduce the frictional resistance and increase the penetrating properties of the needle.

The end 14? may be chamfered off as indicated, and the adjacent corner 13 of the shoulder 13 may be rounded, thus removing sharp edges on which the thread might be liable to catch.

I wish to state in conclusion that although the illustrated example constitutes a practical embodiment of my invention in a very simple form, I do not limit myself strictly to the mechanical details herein illustrated, since manifestly the same can be considerably varied without departing from the spirit of the invention.

Having thus described my invention, 1 claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent,

The herein described needle, the front and rear ends of which are solid and the intermediate portion divided longitudinally to present a continuous rigid body integral with the said front and rear ends and eX- tending continuously therebetween, and an elongated, integral, thread-clamping arm ranging longitudinally of the needle and extending forwardly from its juncture with the body, said arm being substantially of equal thickness throughout, and its front end presenting a broad blunt forward terminal for said arm, there being a rearwardly facing shoulder at the juncture of the body and the front end of the needle, and the mentioned arm merging at its rear end into the material of the body and the rear end and being resilient to normally spring outward, the thick, blunt front end 01 the arm, in closed position lying behind the mentioned shoulder and the said shoulder and blunt end being oppositely beveled at their adjacent outer angles.

In testimony whereof I have signed my name to this specification in the presence of two subscribing witnesses.

OTIS D. BELL.

Witnesses J. L. MoAULIrrE, PHILIP D. RoLLHAUs.

Copies of this patent may be obtained for five cents each, by addressing the Commissioner of Patents, Washington, D. C. 

